Winter Crafts

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School is out for winter break. You want something to do to keep your little ones busy.  Here are some cute crafts to do with them. I know that I love items that have their hand or foot prints on them. Those are the pieces that I will save year after year.  I cherish those pieces to see how much they’ve grown. When they are theme related then I can take them out during that time of year. These crafts are not Holiday specific, just have the Winter Theme.

These crafts would be great for teachers to do in preschool, kindergarten and first grade. Use these crafts during the winter months.

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1. Finger Snowman and Poem—
-need white and blue paint
-sharpie markers
-small canvas
-ribbon
-print out poem

This activity may need to be done over 2 days, or waiting a few hours. First, have your little one paint the canvas with blue paint. They should cover the whole thing so don’t worry how it looks.

Next, squeeze a bit of white paint onto a paper plate. Take your child’s hand and dip in the white paint. Hold the the fingers open, don’t want them touching, and press onto the paper.

Once completely dry then you can make a snowman. Take a black thin sharpie to draw hats onto the fingers. Then draw 2 eyes on the top and 3 buttons in the middle of each finger. Use other colored sharpies to make scarfs. (As you see mine are just lines, you don’t need anything fancy.) Take an orange sharpie for the nose. Draw arms, a mouth and you’re done!!

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After you finished here is a poem to attach to the back.
These aren’t just snowmen
As anyone can see.
I made them with my hand
Which is a part of me.
You will look back and recall
Winter of _______
When my hand was just this small.

So with this craft you have fingerprints and the year all together.

I always say that if the year isn’t on the craft item from school to make sure you write the year. Years later you won’t remember and will be happy you wrote it down.

 

 

2. Finger Snowmen-
-construction paper
-paint
-markers

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This is the same steps for the canvas snowmen. Here you use construction paper instead of a canvas. Instead of doing 4 fingers you use the whole hand.

Squeeze a bit of white paint onto a paper plate.  Take your child’s hand, only need 4 fingers, and dip in the white paint. Hold the four fingers open, don’t want them touching, and press onto the blue canvas. Then, have your child take a brush to go over just the bottom of the canvas. It’s alright if it overlaps the finger prints a bit.

Once completely dry then you can make a snowman. Take a black thin sharpie to draw hats onto the fingers. Then draw 2 eyes on the top and 3 buttons in the middle of each finger. Use other colored sharpies to make scarfs. (As you see mine are just lines, you don’t need anything fancy.) Take an orange sharpie for the nose. Draw arms, a mouth and you’re done!!

Make your hand snowman into a card, a picture to frame or even a place-mat.

 

3. Popsicle Snowflake—
-Popsicle sticks
-glue
-glitter
-beads

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“Just a dot, not a lot.” That’s what you should say to your kids when using glue. Repeat it and sing it. “Just a dot, not a lot.” Otherwise you will have a whole lot of glue and nothing will work.  Kids love to sing it and it helps to remember.

First, take 2 Popsicle sticks and cross them over to make an X. Use a dot of glue in the middle to hold together. Then take a Popsicle stick and glue so it’s vertical. Another Popsicle stick glue horizontal. Wait a bit so the glue dries.

Now squeeze glue onto each stick. Take the glitter and sprinkle over all the glitter. If you want you can put the glitter onto a plate and lay the snowflake in the plate. Shake off the extra glitter. Use beads to glue on the ends of the Popsicle sticks.

I then used hot glue and attached a ribbon to the back. I use this as an ornament. I take it out every year.

 

4. Mittens with Hand Print–
-construction paper (2 colors of your choice)
-marker
-scissors
-glue (this craft can use a glue stick)

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This craft is easy, clean and quick.

Take one piece of construction paper and draw a shape of a mitten. Cut this out.

Then in the middle of the mitten trace your child’s hand. You of course can use paint for the hand, but sometimes it’s easier just to trace.  Every mom has construction paper and markers at any given time. Of course we do!

Using the second piece of construction paper, cut out a shape that looks like a cloud. To help your child cut, do hand over hand. Let your child hold the scissors first. Then take your hand and put over their hand to help guide in cutting. Take this piece and glue to the bottom of the mitten.

Now you have a cute little mitten with your little ones hand print. IMG_1774

If you have other craft supplies laying around feel free to use those to add to your mitten. Pom-poms, glitter or beads look great on the mitten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Melted Snowman and Poem—
-construction paper—Blue, white and colors of your choice for the hat, nose and arms)
-glue
-black hat cut out
-orange nose cut out (a triangle shape is the easiest)

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Have your child rip up the white paper. You could cut the white paper into squares if you decide to do that instead. After your child has a pile of ripped up white paper, have them glue the paper onto the blue construction paper. This is great for little ones, because they don’t have to glue the paper in a specific way. Then glue the black hat somewhere towards the top of the white paper clippings. You can draw to eyes or cut out 2 black circles. Glue the eyes down. Next, glue the nose and arms down.

Here is a poem for your Melted Snowman.
I made a little snowan,
I made him just like that.
The sun came out and melted him,
And now my snowman’s flat. IMG_1893

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Cotton Ball Snowmen—
-cotton balls
-paper (I like blue so it looks like the sky)
-glue
-crayons or markers

If your child is young you can make circles as an outline of a snowman. The child can use cotton balls fill in the circle to make a snowman.  Older children can make a snowman without an outline.

 

Hello Everyone!

I am so excited to start this journey!  I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for a while now.  I will be using my experiences from teaching and being a mother to build this blog.  This blog is all about young children.  I will mostly be talking about toddlers through early elementary school age.  I started this blog to have a place for parents and families to read other stories, get some helpful information, and reach out to other people going through the same things.  Here you will find some stories and topics that you may relate to.  I will be including activities for different areas of development as well as fun crafts to do with your little ones.  I hope you find the information helpful.

Please come back to see topics and stories I have added. I would love to hear your comments and receive emails.  Please leave questions or any topics that you would like to discuss.

Thank You